A Winters Light.

Our office closed again so another snow day. I decided it was time to take a hike and retrieve the boys Christmas booty from the undisclosed location where it all had been hidden. I took some pictures along the way both with my film camera and with my son's (which will be mine after 12/24) digital camera. I really can't see myself using a digital SLR over my Nikon, Nikkormat or Leitz CL. I couldn't afford the lenses and even if I could I bet the quality of my old 60's nikkors and Rokkor lenses are far superior to whatever is being made now. Still the simplicity of a small slim Nikon coolpix with 10megapixels is a fun little plaything and if I owned any digital camera it would be in the sub 200.00 market for snap shots. I still prefer and respect the craft and skill and experience that one earns working with film and manual cameras. At least you can feel you have accomplished something in a format that takes years just to become adequate compared to the idiot proof digital camera where one merely needs a finger to take a perfect picture the first time you pick it up. Big whoop. But I digress.

It was a beautiful walk and I anticipate what may be actual falling and accumulated snow on Christmas Day. The rarest of Portland events. I have seen snow on the ground on Christmas day, once in 1990 where we had a very good storm that started around the same time this one did and remained cold up until Christmas. I have also twice seen heavy snows on Christmas Eve that melted totally away by Christmas Day. Last year snow fell on Chrismas Day, but this year could be a first at least as far back as I can remember to around 1957. I wouldn't bet money on it though but this storm is closest to the one in 1990 where extended cold temps and accumulated snow kept it on the ground till Christmas though back then by Christmas it was a thick crust of ice and not the nice powder we have now. So I am hoping for things to stay close to freezing and some more frozen precip for the next two days. I've done the shopping and there is plenty of food, coffee, wine, bread stored up to see us through to the weekend. I want for nothing more.